[4]Group01 – Manufacturing Deconstruction

In Sunset Park, remnants remain from a now decaying manufacturing industry that once thrived during the forties and fifties. Though still zoned for manufacturing many seek to change the waterfront site into a luxurious residential area. There is also a Sanitation Department Building with truck fleet storage on the site. In New York City, 60% of the waste produced is related to construction demolition materials, most of it is sent to landfills. This project, based on the premise that Manufacturing should stay at home, creates a partenership between the Sanitation Government Agency and local manufacturers in order to close the material loop in New York, the city can become self-repairing. The Agency takes over the transportation and sorting of deconstructed materials and sells them to the manufacturers to innovate and develop new products that can be sent back to the consumers.

The relics still left in Sunset Park, (garage doors, fire escapes, docks, elevators) become the triggers for disassembly of the site into an ecosystem of manufacturing where ideas, technology, and infrastructure is shared. The main design component of the project is a manual for decaying sites into productivity. A fire escape becomes a Fire-Claw that allows buildings to give each other handshakes, the Roto-Transfer, made of garage doors, is constantly redefining shared spaces as it sorts materials, Mobile Laboratories filled with engineers move entire buildings to structural testing sites, and a Vertical conveyor Belt showcases finished prefab products to shopping contractors.